We understood, in the East Indies, from certain Portuguese, that they have lately discovered the coast of China as high as the latitude of 59 deg.  N. finding the sea still open to the northwards, by which great hopes are entertained of finding the north-east or north-west passage.

Witness, JAMES LANCASTER.

SECTION VII.

Supplementary Account of the former Voyage, by John May.[23]

We departed from Plymouth on the 10th April, 1591, with three tall ships; the Penelope, Captain Raimond admiral; the Merchant Royal, Captain Samuel Foxcroft[24] vice-admiral; and the Edward Bonadventure, Captain James Lancaster rear-admiral; on board of which I sailed, together with a small pinnace.  In May following we arrived at Gran Canaria, one of the Fortunate Islands; and towards the end of that month, being within three degrees of the equator on the north side, we took a Portuguese ship, bound for Brasil, which tended much to our refreshment.  The 29th July we came to Saldanha Bay. (Aguada Saldania,) a good harbour, near the Cape of Good Hope, where we staid about a month, and whence we sent home the Merchant Royal for England, because of great sickness among our people, with a considerable number of our weak men.  We here bought an ox for a knife worth three-pence, a sheep for a broken knife, or any other odd trifle, from the natives, who are negroes, clad in cloaks of raw-hides, both men and women.

[Footnote 23:  Hakluyt, III. 52.]

[Footnote 24:  In the account of this voyage, penned from the relation of Edmund Barker, forming the immediately preceding section, the captain of the Merchant Royal is named Abraham Kendal.—­E.]

The 8th of September the Penelope and Edward Bonadventure weighed anchor, and that day we doubled the cape.  The 12th following we were assailed by a fierce tempest, or hurricane; and in the evening we saw a great sea break over our admiral, the Penelope, which struck out their light, and we never saw them any more.  In October we in the Edward fell in with the westernmost part of the island of St Lawrence about midnight, not knowing where we were.  Next day we came to anchor at Quitangone, a place on the main-land of Africa, two or three leagues north of Mozambique, which is supplied from hence with fresh water.  We here took a pangaia, in which was a Portuguese boy, being a vessel like a barge, with one mat-sail of cocoa-nut leaves.  The hull of this barge is pinned with wooden pins, and sewed with cord made of the bark of trees.  In this pangaia we found a kind of corn called millio, or millet, a considerable number of hens, and some bales of blue calicut cloth.  We took the Portuguese boy with us, and dismissed the rest.  From this place we went to an island called Comoro, off the coast of Melinda, in about 11 deg.  S., where we staid all November, finding the people black and comely, but very treacherous; for the day